How to Stop Spam Comments in WordPress site?

WordPress is the most popular platform to build versatile websites. WordPress is popular because using WordPress you can build many types of websites like blogs, news websites, travel websites, e-commerce etc. and in blog posts you can even enjoy comments from visitors which is one of the best way to get response from visitors and readers.

Spam Comments

Spam comments are the unwanted messages which are written in comments by some of the visitors who wants to promote some link or website. Spam is mostly linked to the unwanted or junk emails but it is also found in comments. Although opening up your website to allow users to comment on various posts or pages is extremely beneficial to build following and engage with your clients but it can also lead to deal with unwanted comments or spams.

Some of the websites which want to link back to their site, either to help boost their search engine ranking or to attract some of your clients to them, post spam comments.

You can stop spam in WordPress comments by just changing few settings.

For many people, handling spam and limiting it is not easy. Sometimes you need to take steps to handle those frustrating comments that have cluttered your thread, blog or pages.

In this article we are discussing ways to deal with spam comments.

Using Popular Plugins

Activate Akismet

Akismet is one of the most popular plugins for WordPress. Akismet comes pre-installed with all WordPress installation hence you don’t need to download it. You just need to activate it and get an API key. If you don’t activate Akismet then you have no chance against Spam. Akismet alone can do a great job in identifying spam comments. Sometimes Akismet filter good comments also as spam hence you should go through spam comments regularly so that you can recover them later easily.

Hence Akismet is one of the first thing you should set up as it comes with every WordPress site and is very easy to use. Akismet is a highly advanced anti-spam service and is used by millions of WordPress site owners around the world. You can also search for some different plugin to handle spam comments but Akismet can also do that easily and good thing is that it is preinstalled and already so many people are using it and have positive feedbacks about it. To get started with Akismet you need to do:-

Set up an account of log in to an existing account with Akismet.

Get or Receive an API key.

Go to the settings of Akismet on your WordPress site.

Paste the API key.

That’s it.

But Akismet is also not 100% perfect. You will still need to take some other steps to make sure your website is not getting the spam comments.

Adding Captcha Verification

You can use WP-reCAPTCHA plugin to enable recaptcha challenge on your comment forms. Recaptcha shows an image which contains characters which users need to type to prove that they are human. Recaptcha is a good way to block spam bots but it cannot stop manually submitted spam comments.

Also recaptcha makes it difficult for users to submit comments. Good thing is reCAPTCHA can at least block spam bots.

Changing Comment Settings in WordPress Blog

Making it compulsory for users to register before commenting

In WordPress, you can set it up so that only registered users get the opportunity to comment. Although it can make it more inconvenient for the genuine web visitor to leave comments and even reply or ask questions but it can greatly help you to reduce the amount of spam that you can get. This may seen an unnecessary step for people to engage with you and your business but it is an efficient way to significantly reduce how much spam hits your comment sections. This is not a foolproof solution as there are programs which can do that automatically.

Closing comments for older posts

You can change the discussion settings of your WordPress site and make the changes to close comments for older posts. This is a good way to remove the spam which you end up dealing with as bots or automatic programs that crawl the internet looking for WordPress sites to spam comment on older posts.

Moderating Comments

You can change settings in your WordPress site so that no comments will be posted to your site unless and until you approve it. This looks great but remember it could also end up having hundreds or even thousands of comments on your site every day or week and then you will have to spend lots of time to determine which comments are spam and which ones are genuine. Although the more you will do this over time, you will become familiar with it that how spam comments are structured. Some spam comments have links and some don’t have links.

Removing Website URL Field from Comment Form

If you have enabled URL field in the comment form then it will attract not only spammers (both automated and human) but it will also give chance to people who have no interest in discussion as these comments contains one or two line of irrelevant non-sense and the comment author name will contain a keyword or a combination of real name with keyword. If you remove the URL field from comment form then it will definitely discourage atleast this kind of behavior on your website.

Conclusion

To deal with spam in email and on comment section of your WordPress blog or website can feel to you like a time consuming job but when you do the right settings and install the appropriate filters, you can greatly reduce the time and effort to deal with it. Comments are very important for many businesses as they help build relationships with their clients and customers. Hence disabling comments is not the right way to deal with spam problem. The tips which we have given can greatly help you to reduce or totally remove the spam from your WordPress blog.

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